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Mas Hastings has penned Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

BEST READS 

MAX HASTINGS

(Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962, William Collins)

Robert Harris has seldom been on better form than in Act Of Oblivion, his new 17th-century How-They-Tried-To-Do-It-To-The-People-Who-Dunnit thriller, about the post-Restoration hunt for the men who signed King Charles I's death warrant in 1649.

I admire Robert boundlessly for his originality as well as superb narrative skill. With every book he explores a new historical period, thinks his way into a different moment of the past.

My wife and I are passionate gardeners. We have learned from many great gardening writers, but especially love Xa Tollemache, who has now told the tale of her own garden and others she has designed in her new book A Garden Well Placed.

With wonderfully handsome accompanying photographs, she tells the story of Helmingham in Suffolk, where she has created a horticultural masterpiece alongside the 16th-century moated house in which she has spent much of her life.

A selection of authors have shared their favourite books - ranging in style and genre - to have discovered in 2022

Santa Montefiore wrote Flappy Investigates

SANTA MONTEFIORE 

(Flappy Investigates, S&S)

My favourite book is The Inheritance Of Orquidea Divina by Zoraida Cordova. It is a feast for the senses. Set in America and Ecuador, the story centres around dying Orquidea Divina, who has summoned her family home to Four Rivers in Ecuador to claim their inheritance. But Orquidea is not an ordinary old lady; she's magical.

Yet, in the wonderful tradition of Latin-American magical realism, there's nothing particularly extraordinary about the strange things that occur. The characters are intricate and complex.

The story weaves from past to present as Orquidea's life is slowly revealed. At its core it's about family and love — the legacy left to following generations. I devoured it.

Paterson Joseph wrote The Secret Diaries Of Charles Ignatius Sancho

PATERSON JOSEPH 

(The Secret Diaries Of Charles Ignatius Sancho, Dialogue)

Here Again Now by Okechukwu Nzelu was a favourite for me this year. A story that gave me a view on a world I was unfamiliar with, yet felt so universal.

It tells the story of a young man, Ekene, who is left bereaved by the sudden death of his lover, Achike, and the tricky relationship that grows between Ekene and his lover's grieving father. The powerful narrative is both domestic and deeply profound, and the themes of loss, fatherhood and gay love in a British-Nigerian world are enlightening and moving.

Nzelu's heroes are all flawed, believable men, caught in cycles of machismo and shame, men whose emotions are untrustworthy to them but who must, ultimately, embrace those buried emotions in order to be free to love.

Rev Richard Coles is the author behind Murder Before Evensong

REV RICHARD COLES 

(Murder Before Evensong, W&N)

A novel and a cookbook stood out for me this year. Tiepolo Blue, James Cahill's debut, is about a buttoned-up art historian in Cambridge in 1994 who messes up and gets a job managing a London gallery just as the Young British Artists enter their glory. One of them initiates his unbuttoning which is dizzying and exciting and unsettling, and beautifully told.

Persiana Everyday, by Sabrina Ghayour, is my go-to cookbook this year, full of easy recipes made with accessible things producing wildly successful dishes — try the Muhammara spicy dip, it's so easy and everyone will think you a brilliant cook.

Isabell Allende penned the novel Violeta

ISABEL ALLENDE 

(Violeta, Bloomsbury)

American Midnight by Adam Hochschild, an account of the U.S. after World War I, when hatred, violence, racism and economic uncertainty threatened democracy.

The parallels with it and today's world are terrifying.

Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, a humorous, feminist novel with unforgettable characters. I loved it.

Mercury Pictures Presents, by Anthony Marra — great writer!

This is a smart satiric novel about Hollywood in the 1940s, war, fascism and personal drama.

The book Mother's Boy was written by Patrick Gale

PATRICK GALE 

(Mother's Boy, Tinder Press)

Two memoirs and a novel are among my favourites from this year which didn't receive the notice they deserved. 

Cynthia Rogerson's Wah! is a deliciously funny account of all the youthful misadventures about which Rogerson never told the maddening mother she is now supporting through dementia.

Mark Vanhoenacker's Imagine A City weaves an account of this hugely gifted writer's small-town gay boyhood through evocations of the cities around the world he has come to love as an airline pilot.

Meanwhile, Jessica Andrews' arresting account of obsessive young love and anxiety, Milk Teeth, more than fulfils the promise of her debut, Saltwater.

Clare Chambers is the author behind Small Pleasures

CLARE CHAMBERS 

(Small Pleasures, W&N)

And Finally, the third volume of Henry Marsh's memoirs, sees the retired neurosurgeon make the sobering switch from doctor to patient. Whether he is reflecting on the Covid-19 pandemic, being scammed by dodgy roofers, or receiving a diagnosis of advanced cancer, his dignified introspection is a joy.

In Sarah Manguso's Very Cold People, Ruthie charts her family's doomed attempts to fit in to clannish Massachusetts society in a series of painful and brilliantly detailed vignettes.

The micro-humiliations of girlhood are mercilessly described, and the dark truth that hovers at the periphery of our narrator's vision is haunting.

Author Ken Follett wrote Never 

KEN FOLLETT 

(Never, Pan)

The Dawn Of Everything: A New History Of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow. This book is a bomb that explodes everything we've ever believed about the history of the human race.

We were never noble savages because we were never savages. Nor were we innocent tribesmen gathering nuts in happy equality. All existing accounts of our early history are myths, like the garden of Eden.

The book is closely argued and packed with evidence. 'Primitive' people actually had a wide variety of types of society. And when Europeans learned the languages of the New World they were shocked to hear their proud civilisation intelligently criticised by sophisticated thinkers.

As always, realising how much we don't know is the beginning of wisdom.

Louise Candlish penned The Only Suspect

LOUISE CANDLISH 

(The Only Suspect, S&S)

I really loved The Last Party, the first in a new police series by Clare Mackintosh. Set in North Wales, it's brimming with epic scenery —all mists and mountains and freezing lakes.

When a body is found after a New Year's Eve party in a lodge on Llyn Drych (Mirror Lake), local DC Ffion Morgan investigates. She feels real right from the off: funny and complicated and very sweary.

My other favourite was The Skeleton Key by Erin Kelly: part Hampstead literati saga, part thriller, part fantasy treasure hunt. I enjoyed feeling unsure of where the story was going — and which characters might survive its traps.

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